1000 5th Ave

Taking the week-end off from all the work and frustrations of packing up and selling a house during a severely depressed housing market, we head off for a day at the museum to check out the antiquities collection. The Met is simply too big do do much in a day and even for this subset the visit remains superficial.

West Chelsea

On an otherwise lazy Saturday, we go to visit a few galleries based on recommendations from TONY.

Guggenheim Museum - 1071 5th avenue

The main exhibition in the rotunda is showing drawings and paintings by the Iraqi/British architect Zaha Hadid. Her vision is somewhat hard to grasp for most mere mortals and despite some efforts, I fail to visualize most of her drawings. Despite international acclaim, only a few of her works seem to have been built or completed recently, including a rather unusual car assembly plant for BMW in east germany, a science museum in Wolfsburg and an art museum in Cincinnati.

MOMA

Having visitors in Town, we head for the MOMA. Since its almost too big to visit in just a few hours, we focus on the permanent collection of painting and sculpture from the early 20th century - the namesake period of modernism.

Moma

New Dada exhibition at the Moma and some look around at the permanent collection. Interesting exhibit by Herzog & de Meuron (the architects) on how to present works from the collection in an unusual setting, questioning the white-box approach of modern museums that we take for granted almost without questioning.

Moma

The privileges of a corporate membership allow to go there just for a single worthwhile exhibition and on a day that expects to have deterring lines at the gate - on a holiday week-end and one day after its opening. Most notable absent is "The Scream" - Munchs most well-known painting which is represented by similar works from a logical series - including lithographs and other, less "internalized" self portraits on that bridge, during that sunset - a moment which Munch describes as a scream of nature.



Probably my favorite painting of the exhibition is the Madonna above - an unusual blend of spiritual and erotic - a most enigmatic portrait - serene and macabre. Besides, I am just too curious on what the religious right would have to say about this take on christian iconography.

Museum of Natural History

Finally in the 3rd attempt, with tickets 3 weeks in advance and still having to stand in line for 15min to get in - the much anticipated Darwin special exhibit at the AMNH. With so much anticipation it is bound to disappoint. Since I had read "On the Origin of Species" a while back (for my high-school English oral exam...) I was somewhat familiar with the man and his work. But only after coming to the US I became aware how most controversial his conclusions still are. I don't fully understand what makes evolution such a favored target for the religious right - why is't anybody attacking quantum physics with the same zeal? Aren't its conclusions no more or no less undermining to any form of moral absolutism?

150 W 17th Street

A quite and serene environment to spend a cold afternoon admiring the richness and complexity of art from the Himalaya.

We really wanted to see the new Darwin exhibit - but it seems that you don't now just only need to pay extra for every special exhibition - but they sell out. Well - I guess we'll have to go back again some other time, but at least we got to see the monkeys!

Moma

Another special exhibition at the Moma with drawings and models from Pixar - the digital animation studio, which seems to have reinvented the computer animation as new form of entertainment - not necessarily through technical wizardry but mostly because the stories are compelling. The show also includes drawings from the upcoming movie Cars - looks like it has the potential to become another Pixar hit.

Moma

The benefits of a corporate membership - we can just go anytime, just to see a single exhibit, like this new show on safety and security aspects in industrial design.

Guggenheim Museum

A spectacular show of russian art - made in Russia, by Russians in Exile or collected by Russians over the centuries. From iconography to satirical portrayal of the "paradise of workers and farmers".

11 W53rd St.

2nd visit since the opening - with some complementary membership passes to see the new special exhibition on the birth of the modern painting movement shown by the example of Paul Cezanne and Camille Pissarro breaking away from the Academy tradition of the time.

79th st/Central Park West

For people who don't get up in time on a week-end, this is an overwhelmingly large museum. So one has to set priorities, like to go for the flashy stuff first, like dinosaurs, or the planetariums - or is it now called a galacticum...

150 W17th st (7 ave)

This recently opened museum in a former department store specialized in art from the Himalayas. The gallery space arranged like a tower around a sweeping open stair-case in the center provide a serene environment for presenting its collection of religious paintings and sculpture. The museum and its staff really try to make an effort to beyond esthetics and curiosity and try to educate the public on the sensibilities, beliefs and world views of the little (mostly) Buddhist cultures who created and used the presented pieces in their religious life. It's rare that art museums do such a good job in providing context.

MoMA - 11 W53 St

For a first stroll through the vast new halls of the new building at 53 St and a show of its collection in the various departments, organized the way presumably the museum intends to thematically use this new space. Now slightly too large for a single comfortable visit, specially with the crowds, the new building is nearly intimidating. In the top 6th floor gallery, the curators seemed to have gotten tired or run out of ideas what to do with all that space. Or just wanted to show off the humnoungous cavernous new gallery that even makes the Rosenquist F-111 installation look tiny... Happy to see a lot of familiar pieces again after all those years in what still is my favorite museum in town. Given the long lines and the new prices, a membership is worth itself more than ever...

233 5th ave (27th st.)

There is probably a museum about anything, anywhere in the world and quite possibly even in New York - this one not being even that far fetched. Showing a dual exhibition about a century of American pin-ups (1860-1960) as well as sex in Chinese culture. From old texts and images one can for example learn that in extension of the popular notion that mongolian horsemen would eat and sleep on their horses, they reportedly also performed other activities on the back of their horses quite skillfully...

Guggenheim Museum - 1071 5th ave (89th st.)

A pioneer of abstract sculpture, a drastic departure from the predominant style of Rodin at the time. Simple, pure, beautiful...

New York Historical Society - 170 Central Park West

The guy on the $10 bill. Influential political, economical and legal visionary, activist and power player during the decisive early years of the US confederation. First Secretary of the Treasury and the only one of the faces on the US dollar bills to never become a president. Presumably for that we was too much of an uncompromising technocrat and not diplomatic enough...

33st Queens Blvd.

A trip to queens to finally see where the museum of modern Art is hiding during the reconstruction of its midtown building. The old factory makes for a pretty crammed location showing 3 exhibitions: a Dieter Roth retrospective, new crossover trends in fashion photography and some excerpts from the collection. I can't wait for the new building to open again...

945 Madison Ave (75th st.)

The last week-end of the 2004 Biennial exhibition of what the curators consider an overview of the contemporary American arts scene. Seeing how many artists presented in this exhibition are younger than I am, makes me feel old...

580 Madison Avenu (56th st)

With an exhibition of costumes and sketches from Operas themed after the "orient" and a permanent collection of academic art. Lot's of history paintings, which were considered preferred motives by the strictly formal and thoroughly trained painters of various academies - that acted as schools and painter "unions" from the renaissance up to the beginning of the 20th century. While all those paintings are perfectly executed, they seem generic, lacking inspiration and soul. But one comes also to see that in a time when film, photography and TV did not exist, painting must have played a much larger role - to document, illustrate educate and entertain.

Haven't been in years, it's simply too big and confusing - even with a map. In the few hours until closing, we barely managed to scratch the surface of the many exhibits.

20th-24th streets between 10th and 11th ave

Taking advantage of the timid arrival of spring to walk around in gallery district along the outer districts in Chelsea. The galleries are so dense in that area that they almost form a virtual museum with a random view of contemporary art.

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Retrospective to the centennial of his death, the British designer Christopher Dresser is one of the fathers of industrial design. Taking influences from biology or from artifacts and trips to the middle east, India or Japan as inspriation for rather ethnic or decorative looking pieces of industrial production, some of his works in glass and electro-plated metal seem 100 years ahead of its time.

AMMI in Astoria, Queens 35ave/36st next to Kaufmann Astoria Studios

Lots of gear, props and memorabilia from the early and not so early days of Film and Television. Getting there takes a ride on the elevated subway (hmm, isn't that an oxymoron?) which by itself is a classic movie moment.

Exhibition of Japanese folding sceens and a captivating meditative video installation (TOOBA by Shirin Neshat) in the modern gallery space of the Asia Society on the upper east-side. Intriguing indoor garden cafe - still wondering if the trees were real...